The 5 Most Inspiring Social Media Case Studies You Should Check

We’ve all heard it: “The best way to learn is through your own mistakes”. But what if we could skip the hard lessons and learn from someone else’s success instead?

Analyzing successful social media case studies is exactly that – insights into what works, why it works, and how we can apply those strategies to our own social media marketing.

Social media case studies show real-life examples of successful campaigns.

They explain:
– What a brand did
– Why it worked
– & the results they achieved

These case studies reveal strategies, insights, and trends that can help other brands improve their own social media marketing.

Let’s dive in!

Top Social Media Case Studies:

1. Global66 and their success stories on how to find new influencers
2. Jacquemus uses food to evoke emotions
3. MailerLite: Community engagement strategies lead to a 169% increase in their social media reach
4. Glossier: Building a $1.8 billion beauty brand with micro-influencers
5. Duolingo: Gaining over 13M following and connecting to Gen Z audience using TikTok

01 Global66 and their success stories on how to find new influencers

What is Global66?

Global66 is a payment platform that provides fast, affordable, and transparent money transfer services. Their goal is simple – make international transfers as seamless as possible.

They wanted to grow and expand their reach.

However, Global66 faced the challenge of finding and connecting with relevant influencers who could authentically promote their services across social media platforms.

The brand wanted to go beyond typical paid promotions. They wanted to partnership with ambassadors that genuinely aligned with their brand values and audience.

The Challenge: Finding genuine ambassadors

While it’s easy to find people with big numbers. It’s harder to find the ones that will be the perfect fit for your brand.

Global66 decided to find ambassadors who already had an organic connection with the brand.

Therefore – these influencers are already interested in their services and have marketing assets relevant to their niche.

The Solution: Using Brand24 to discover and engage with potential brand ambassadors

Using Brand24, Global66 monitored brand mentions across online platforms.

This social media monitoring allowed Global66 to find accounts that were already discussing or recommending their services without prior endorsement.

One of the most interesting finds was an education-focused Instagram page. They also had a YouTube channel and a podcast specializing in finance and personal growth.

This account had previously mentioned Global66, so they already introduced the brand’s services to their audiences in a very authentic way.

The Outcome: Establishing valuable partnerships

Thanks to Brand24’s analysis, Global66 started talking with them, knowing that the influencer was already familiar with the brand. This way, the collab discussions went smoother and led to a successful promotion.

“This approach led us to discover many brand ambassadors we weren’t even aware of, many of whom had substantial followings on their social media platforms. Interestingly, some ambassadors who shared their links with their followers eventually became influencers for us.”  

– María Camila Segura Matiz, Head of Strategic Communications at Global66

Key learnings:

1. Authenticity > Paid partnerships
   By targeting influencers who organically mentioned Global66, the brand ensured that new partnerships were built on genuine interest. This improved the overall impact.
2. Get insights using social listening tools
   Brand24’s social listening allowed Global66 to discover influencers they might have otherwise missed, fostering new connections with potential ambassadors who had high engagement rates.
3. Smooth collaboration thanks to pre-existing familiarity
   Finding influencers who are already familiar with the brand can ease partnership discussions. They were already comfortable with Global66’s mission and offerings.

02 Jacquemus – evoking emotions through food

What is Jacquemus?

Jacquemus is a French fashion brand founded by Simon Porte Jacquemus in 2009. They’re known for their minimalist designs and playful aesthetics.

The brand became very popular thanks to various outstanding campaigns. The focus was on merging high fashion with approachable, relatable elements from everyday life… for example food.

Jacquemus’ campaigns often blend the boundaries between art, fashion, and lifestyle, targeting fashion-forward and culturally-aware consumers.

The Challenge

Jacquemus faced the challenge of differentiating itself in the highly competitive luxury fashion industry.

Competing with powerful, luxury, big brands – Jacquemus needed to create an emotional connection with its audience.

They needed something more to stand out, generate buzz, and build brand loyalty.

The Solution: Creative social media marketing – food campaign

Jacquemus started to be more creative. They launched several campaigns that incorporated food as a central theme.

Why?

It may seem weird for a fashion, luxury brand.

But that’s exactly what they wanted – use food to evoke emotions, nostalgia, and reliability. In general – make a positive experience.

They create content based on playful visuals with food intertwined with fashion items, like oversized fruits, mini handbags placed on plates, or models interacting with bread, pasta, and fruit.

They also went crazy for the fashion show invitations – it was a crouton!

By using food, a universally recognizable and emotionally charged symbol, Jacquemus taps into the viewers’ sensory memory.

Food triggers feelings of:

• Comfort
• Warmth
• Everyday joy

Thus, helps consumers associate the brand with moments of simplicity and pleasure.

The Outcome: Becoming more than just a brand

The Jacquemus campaigns that integrated food were widely shared on social media.

Those viral moments improved the brand’s visibility and created the whole vibe around it. The whimsical and artistic presentation of food with high-fashion items sparked conversations and resonated with younger audiences.

These people seek brands that evoke emotional connections, and that’s exactly what Jacquemus created!

The approach positioned Jacquemus as not just a fashion brand but a cultural storyteller. This lead to increased brand awareness, user engagement, direct sales, and social media following.

Key learnings

1. Use of universally familiar symbols
   Using elements like food, which have emotional and cultural resonance, can help brands create stronger connections. It’s a great social media strategy.
2. Sensory marketing
   Psychologists have been tellings us this for a long time – sensory triggers (like taste and memory associations) in campaigns can make products feel more relatable and memorable. Also, they’ll make people want those products more.
3. Social media virality
   Playful, unexpected combinations (like food and fashion) can drive social media engagement and shares. This can boost organic brand growth.

03 MailerLite: Community engagement strategies lead to a 169% increase in their social media reach

What is MailerLite?

MailerLite is an email marketing and automation platform. They offer tools like newsletters and website builders, email automation, and AI content generation.

It’s all about making digital marketing simple so users can focus on more important stuff like building connections with their audiences.

But with a big online presence comes a big challenge – How do you keep your community engaged and make sure your brand is close to their audience?

The Challenge: Engaging the community and building relationships

MailerLite wanted to build stronger relationships with its community, but with so many mentions and conversations happening online, it needed a way to keep track of it all.

Their goal?

To make sure every customer feels heard and appreciated, and to boost their brand’s visibility at the same time.

Not an easy task!

The Solution: Social listening to the rescue!

MailerLite found their answer in Brand24, a social listening tool that helps brands track and respond to online mentions.

Instead of just sitting back and watching, MailerLite decided to actively engage with everyone who relevantly mentioned them.

This personal approach made customers (especially small businesses) feel special and connected.

Plus, these interactions often turned into testimonials that boosted MailerLite’s social proof.

The Outcome: Increase in reach and visibility

By engaging with their community and paying close attention to what people were saying, MailerLite saw some amazing results in their key performance indicators:

• A 20% boost in brand visibility
• A 169% increase in their social media reach!

They also built stronger, lasting relationships with customers, which helped turn loyal users into brand advocates.

And all of this helped keep MailerLite’s reputation shiny and bright…

Plus, the Presence Score speaks for itself:

Key learnings:

1. Engage, don’t just listen
   Reaching out to your community makes them feel valued and creates loyal brand fans.
2. Use data to guide your decisions
   Analyzing how your marketing is performing helps you make smarter choices for future campaigns.
3. Prioritize meaningful mentions
   Not all mentions are created equal! Focus on the ones that matter to build deeper connections.

04 Glossier: Building a $1.8 billion beauty brand with micro-influencers

What is Glossier?

Glossier is a beauty brand that began as a blog, Into the Gloss, founded by Emily Weiss.

It focuses on minimalistic, user-friendly skincare and makeup products designed for everyday beauty lovers.

The Challenge: Breaking into the competitive beauty industry

With countless beauty brands and target markets, Glossier needed to create an authentic, standout identity while building a loyal customer base to make them stand out.

The Solution: Leveraging micro-influencers for authenticity

Glossier turned everyday beauty enthusiasts into micro-influencers.

Rather than focusing on celebrities, they empowered customers with smaller, dedicated followings to share their experiences using Glossier products.

These micro-influencers embodied relatability and trust, helping the brand organically grow through real customer stories.

Glossier also encouraged user-generated content, making customers feel involved in the brand.

The Outcome: A community-driven brand

This micro-influencer approach helped Glossier create an active and engaged community. They also expanded their reach and built brand loyalty without relying on heavy, paid promotions.

Word-of-mouth marketing also did its job and led to viral product releases and a solid social media presence.

Key learnings:

1. Use the power of micro-influencers to build trust and authenticity.
   By working with micro-influencers, Glossier showed that real people with smaller, trusted followings can connect better with audiences than big-name celebrities, creating a more personal feel.
2. Make customers part of the brand:
   Encouraging customers to share their own content made them feel like insiders. This helped Glossier grow naturally through word-of-mouth.
3. Focus on community-driven growth rather than traditional, paid endorsements.
   Glossier’s focuses on authenticity and genuine connection. This gave customers a sense of belonging, which strengthened brand loyalty and community ties.

05 Duolingo: Gaining over 13M following and connecting to Gen Z audience using TikTok

What is Duolingo?

Duolingo is a popular language-learning app known for its fun and interactive approach to helping people learn new languages. It is basically a game with levels but for learning languages.

The Challenge: Connecting with young people

Duolingo wanted to reach their target audience – younger people, especially Gen Z, and stand out in a space where educational content isn’t typically viral.

The Solution: Duo the Owl takes over TikTok

Duolingo’s mascot, Duo the Owl, became the face of a funny, meme-based TikTok campaign.

The team created humorous videos featuring Duo in all sorts of funny situations, from joking about “stalking” users who miss lessons to participating in popular trends.

This quirky, self-aware humor made language learning feel accessible and entertaining, boosting Duolingo’s brand visibility.

The Outcome: Massive engagement and viral success

This approach resonated with young TikTok users and also led to a wave of brand recognition and app downloads.

The campaign improved Duolingo’s visibility, gaining over 13M followers.

By taking themselves not too seriously, they made language learning fun and approachable.

Key learnings:

1. Use humor and personality
   Make people feel like you’re one of them. Use humor to connect with audiences in a genuine way.
2. Leverage platform trends
   Tapping into TikTok’s meme culture helped Duolingo stand out and connect with Gen Z.
3. Build a relatable brand character
   Duo the Owl became a beloved “character,” making the brand memorable and approachable.
4. Engage through consistency
   Regular posts kept Duolingo in the conversation, making it a familiar presence on social media.

Conclusion

Learning from a well-defined social media strategy can provide valuable lessons and be inspiring.

By looking at real-world examples, we can identify key steps to growing our social media channels, improving the content strategy, engaging with the target audience, and making a real impact online.

Final thoughts:

• Global66’s campaign with genuine influencers shows that real connections make stronger engagement and loyalty.
• Jacquemus’s playful mix of fashion and food is a reminder that unexpected elements can elevate brand storytelling and create buzz.
• Duolingo’s TikTok posts, led by Duo the Owl, prove that having a personality is key to standing out and reaching the right audiences.

Got inspired? Start analyzing your social media with a Brand24 trial and up your game!